And sometimes the entire computer locks up. It's been happening at least once a day -- today 5 times and counting. Most of the time, the computer locks up so that I can't click or force quit anything, but I can still move my mouse. Sometimes, the screen will go entirely black, except the backlight. Sometimes (this is what just happened a few minutes ago), the screen goes entirely gray. One time the computed locked up and went all jumbled, but I was still, for some strange reason, able to take a screenshot using the keyboard shortcut, and when I retorted the screenshot was saved (pictured below). In any case, in order to get out of the freeze, I have to force shut down my computer by holding the power button for 8 seconds or so.

I tried thoroughly cleaning out my computer and GPU with compressed air, but that didn't seem to help at all. I tried a archive and install a few months ago, and that didn't seem to help. Is is possible I'd need to do a clean install to fix the problems rather than an archive and install? Also, I've been thinking for a long time it's a GPU defect, and my computers covered under AppleCare, but Apple hasn't been very helpful diagnosing the problem-- they want me to send it in, but that's kinda hard to do.

And sometimes the entire computer locks up. It's been happening at least once a day -- today 5 times and counting. Most of the time, the computer locks up so that I can't click or force quit anything, but I can still move my mouse. Sometimes, the screen will go entirely black, except the backlight. Sometimes (this is what just happened a few minutes ago), the screen goes entirely gray. One time the computed locked up and went all jumbled, but I was still, for some strange reason, able to take a screenshot using the keyboard shortcut, and when I retorted the screenshot was saved (pictured below). In any case, in order to get out of the freeze, I have to force shut down my computer by holding the power button for 8 seconds or so.

I tried thoroughly cleaning out my computer and GPU with compressed air, but that didn't seem to help at all. I tried a archive and install a few months ago, and that didn't seem to help. Is is possible I'd need to do a clean install to fix the problems rather than an archive and install? Also, I've been thinking for a long time it's a GPU defect, and my computers covered under AppleCare, but Apple hasn't been very helpful diagnosing the problem-- they want me to send it in, but that's kinda hard to do.

ARRRRRG

Help please!

Try installing Windows in a small boot camp partition and see if it still happens. Then you'll know for sure if it's software related or hardware

Thanks for the help, but alas, another road bump. My ISP sucks so I have a 500MB bandwidth limit per 24 hour period and then it crawls to a deathly slow rate for the next 24 hours. I tried to boot off of my sister's MacBook Pro in target disk mode, but wasn't able to test it fully because the entire system was running sluggish because I was running from a firewire 400 connection.

At one point when I opened up my Mac Pro the filter of the graphics card did have a layer of dust on it like in the picture. I removed that dust and later used compressed air to spray as much dust out of the GPU as possible. Even despite the cleaning, I'm still having problems.

At one point when I opened up my Mac Pro the filter of the graphics card did have a layer of dust on it like in the picture. I removed that dust and later used compressed air to spray as much dust out of the GPU as possible. Even despite the cleaning, I'm still having problems.

Other things to try would be:

- boot into safe mode holding shift key at startup and check if the glitches are there
- If you can, try booting from a clean installation, maybe an external drive (not a clone of your internal machine - if possible, try to get a 10.4 installation because it might be Leopard's drivers)
- reset the Mac Pro PRAM and SMC:

- boot into safe mode holding shift key at startup and check if the glitches are there
- If you can, try booting from a clean installation, maybe an external drive (not a clone of your internal machine - if possible, try to get a 10.4 installation because it might be Leopard's drivers)
- reset the Mac Pro PRAM and SMC:

I did already reset the PRAM and the SMC a while back and that didn't help. I haven't had the chance to boot to an external hard drive with a 10.4 or a clean version of 10.5 yet, but I'll try that if I can.

I DO have Apple Care and it's about 1.5 years into the warrantee so it's covered. Do you think Apple would replace my X1900 with the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT?

They were replacing defective X1900s with revised models so I reckon that's what they'd replace it with. They probably have a stock-pile of them since you can't get them with the new machines.

I just called for the second time (I called a few months ago and gave me the suggestion of cleaning dust out) and they basically told me to take it to a local authorized service provider to get it checked out, so I guess that's what I'll do. I'm almost positive it's the graphics card though. The only other possible thing it could be would be a Mac OS X problem, but I did a archive and install and that didn't help. If it is the graphics card, I'm going to argue to have them replace my graphics card with the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT.

I called Apple on Monday (1-800-SOS-APPL) and told them about my Mac Pro's troubles, exactly as described in this thread.

The solution? On Tuesday they sent me out a new X1900 XT and a box to return the old one in. Free DHL shipping both ways, although I had to provide a credit card number. I installed it, and no problems since. They KNOW all about this issue. It IS related to heat. My old card's vent intake was clogged with dust, and dust is visible around the card's fan. I don't know if clearing the dust would fix it, or if the card is damaged by previous overheating. In any case, it is a poor design (the fins on the card's intake are too close together and there is no way for dust to simply move through). I will periodically vacuum this new card to avoid this issue.

All is now well. PS: I have AppleCare and Pro Care. I think that probably mattered.

Quote:

Originally Posted by icfireball

I just called for the second time (I called a few months ago and gave me the suggestion of cleaning dust out) and they basically told me to take it to a local authorized service provider to get it checked out, so I guess that's what I'll do. I'm almost positive it's the graphics card though. The only other possible thing it could be would be a Mac OS X problem, but I did a archive and install and that didn't help. If it is the graphics card, I'm going to argue to have them replace my graphics card with the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT.

I called Apple on Monday (1-800-SOS-APPL) and told them about my Mac Pro's troubles, exactly as described in this thread.

The solution? On Tuesday they sent me out a new X1900 XT and a box to return the old one in. Free DHL shipping both ways, although I had to provide a credit card number. I installed it, and no problems since. They KNOW all about this issue. It IS related to heat. My old card's vent intake was clogged with dust, and dust is visible around the card's fan. I don't know if clearing the dust would fix it, or if the card is damaged by previous overheating. In any case, it is a poor design (the fins on the card's intake are too close together and there is no way for dust to simply move through). I will periodically vacuum this new card to avoid this issue.

All is now well. PS: I have AppleCare and Pro Care. I think that probably mattered.

That makes me angry because I called AppleCare twice and both times they told me to send it in or take it into an Apple Authorized Service Provider. If it's a known problem, they should have told me. But I finally did bring it in to a local ASP and they've apparently fixed it -- I haven't been able to check yet.